ReachTEL: 53-47 to Labor

The monthly ReachTEL poll for the Seven Network gives Labor its biggest post-election lead to date, the slow-moving Essential Research also ticks a point in Labor’s favour, and Morgan records little change.

UPDATE (Essential and Morgan): The fortnightly Morgan multi-mode poll, conducted over the past two weekends from a sample of 3019 by face-to-face and SMS, shows little change on the primary vote, with the Coalition up half a point to 39.5%, Labor down one to 37%, the Greens up one to 11.5% and the Palmer United Party down half a point to 3%. Labor’s lead is up half a point on the headline respondent-allocated two-party preferred measure, from 52.5-47.5 to 53-47, but the precise opposite happens on the previous election preferences measure. Today’s Essential Research moves a point in Labor’s favour on two-party preferred, which is now at 50-50. Both major parties are down a point on the primary vote, the Coalition to 42% and Labor to 36%, with the Greens and the Palmer United Party steady on 9% and 4%. See bottom of post for further details.

GhostWhoVotes relates that the latest monthly ReachTEL automated phone poll conducted for the Seven Network gives Labor its biggest post-election lead to date, up to 53-47 from 52-48 in the December 15 poll. Primary votes are Coalition 39.8%, down from 41.4%; Labor 40.6%, up from 40.4%; and Greens 9.1%, up from 8.7%. The poll also has 20.3% reporting being better off since a year ago compared with 39.3% for worse off and 40.4% for neither. Prospectively, 23.5% expect to be better off in a year, 39.4% worse off and 37.1% neither. On the economy as a whole, 34.9% think it headed in the right direction and 39.3% in the wrong direction, with 25.8% undecided. A very similar question from Essential Research last week had 38% rating the economy as heading in the right direction versus 33% for the wrong direction, which while better than the ReachTEL results was a substantial deterioration on post-election findings which had it at 44% and 27%. These figures here courtesy of Ryan Moore on Twitter.

The poll was conducted on Thursday from a sample of 3547. Full results will be available on the ReachTEL site tomorrow, which will apparently include personal ratings that have Tony Abbott up and Bill Shorten down. Stay tuned tomorrow for the weekly Essential Research and fortnightly Morgan.

UPDATE (Essential Research): Crikey reports Essential Research has moved a point in Labor’s favour on two-party preferred, which is now at 50-50. Both major parties are down a point on the primary vote, the Coalition to 42% and Labor to 36%, with the Greens and the Palmer United Party steady on 9% and 4%. Also featured: privatisation deemed a bad idea by 59%, including 69% for Australia Post and 64% for the ABC and SBS; 24% think we spend too much on welfare, 41% too little and 27% about right; 64% believe the age pension too low, but only 27% think the same about unemployment benefits; 78% believe alcohol-related violence is getting worse, and perhaps also everything they see in the news media; “87% support harsher mandatory sentences for alcohol-related assaults; over 60% support earlier closing times for bottle shops, pubs and clubs; 76% support lockouts and 59% support lifting the age at which you can buy alcohol”. UPDATE: Full report here.

Why is the dept trying to keep some stuff secret? Or is that by the command of the non-education minister?

But the department has returned to the web much less than was there before. It has published only the 286-page final report requested by Fairfax. The issues paper. The previously-published commissioned studies and submissions remain hidden.

And the department has taken steps to distance itself from the report. It has included a disclaimer noting that it was commissioned by the previous government and provided posted "for historical purposes only".

Drought is threatening to take hold in the Yass region, with farmers already reporting feed is scarce because of late frosts last year.
Third-generation farmers Graham and Neil Privett are storing as much feed as possible on Glenleigh, their 950-hectare grazing property near Yass, in case substantial rain does not fall in autumn, leaving them facing a grim winter.

Australia’s mining construction boom has well and truly peaked – and it is about to become a “notable problem” for the economy, a report says.
Deloitte Access Economics has just published its quarterly Business Outlook, a comprehensive and well-respected report on the state of the Australian economy.
It shows Australian economic activity will grow at a slower pace than usual for the next two years, while the unemployment rate will creep higher.

Chinese demand for the Pilbara’s premium-grade iron ore looks set to strengthen on the back of tougher air pollution standards imposed by Beijing.

The country’s smog crisis, which has sparked a community backlash and forced official action, is likely to see steel, cement and electricity producers pressured to source purer raw materials to meet emission standards, Reuters has reported. The news agency has quoted trade officials predicting that new air pollution standards could squeeze out iron ore suppliers from Iran, Mexico and Vietnam.

Iranian ore contains up to 1.5 per cent sulphur, which contributes to smog. Sulphur levels in Indonesian and Mexican ore can reach 2 per cent, compared with 0.05 per cent in ore from Pilbara powerhouses Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, and Brazil’s Vale.

I’ve always been as the Germans say a realo rather than a fundi Victoria.

Talking about Germans – do as they say, but not the same for them ?

Germany's Bundesbank said on Monday that countries about to go bankrupt should draw on the private wealth of their citizens through a one-off capital levy before asking other states for help.

The Bundesbank's tough stance comes after years of euro zone crisis that saw five government bailouts. There have also bond market interventions by the European Central Bank in, for example, Italy where households' average net wealth is higher than in Germany.

"(A capital levy) corresponds to the principle of national responsibility, according to which tax payers are responsible for their government's obligations before solidarity of other states is required," the Bundesbank said in its monthly report.

...In Germany, however, the Bundesbank said it would not support an implementation of a recurrent wealth tax, saying it would harm growth.

Of course the building companies are part of fhe corruption. How else do the union reps get paid for favours. Workers ie union members have nothing to offer union officials other than their actual labour.

With the Lib vote declining, the pool of identifying ‘Liberal voters’ is getting smaller proportionally. You’d expect someone who’s switched their voting intention to Labor because they didn’t like Abbott to bouy the dissatisfaction rating in that demographic. Similarly, you’d expect those remaining Liberal voters to be those who were more enthusiastic about Abbott to begin with.

To illustrate the tenuous connections within groups. For those who are unaware of the Grollo Constructions connections. It was surprising to me that it took so many years for this to be reported

ONE of Melbourne's more unusual family trees can be revealed: tycoon Daniel Grollo and bikie family patriarch Joe Pegoraro became step-brothers when their clans were joined at a Valentine's Day 2004 wedding.

Drat, the first part of my post at 389 went missing. Can’t be bothered rewriting it, but the gist was that the author thinks we’re against the idea of funding marriage counselling because it came from Abbott, whilst admitting that there’s no evidence that it works at all.

IMHO the last question on the poll is useless. People wanting disability reined in would answer yes as would people wanting increased taxes for people retired with massive superannuation packages. Watch the debate unfold because I believe the government and the MSM will see the result as confirmation that people want to stop the welfare mentality.

A friend of mine worked for the Dept of Environment in Victoria when ‘work for the dole’ was last operational.

They had spent a couple of years (and a lot of government money) perfecting a strain of eucalypts for a particular purpose. When the trees were ready to go, they were handed over to a Work for the Dole gang to plant.

The planted trees died off very quickly. On examination, it was found the gang had been simply tearing off the tops of the trees and sticking them in the ground.

The stories of declining mining investment, and its employment and GDP effects, do not contradict the potential rise in demand for Pilbara premium iron ore. It is simply a case of a highly-automated extraction process, in which increases in production don’t have much of an effect on employment, and returns that go to the companies’ (largely foreign) owners.

It does beg the question: since it is our dirt, why do we sell it so cheap?

About this blog

William Bowe is a doctoral candidate with the University of Western Australia’s Discipline of Political Science and International Relations. He has been running the electoral studies blog The Poll Bludger since January 2004, independently until September 2008 and thereafter with Crikey.